Praying for a baby on the way

Sometimes when I hear that someone I love is having a baby, I offer to host a baby shower.

And sometimes, when the parents-to-be are Catholic and already have everything they need, I offer to host a prayer gathering.

We gather, eat and chat, pray the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary, talk about the baby on the way, and enjoy our time together.

I hosted a prayer gathering this past weekend for a baby who’s due later this year—and for the baby’s mother. It was a wonderful party, introducing people who didn’t know one another and then coming together in prayer.

Praying the Rosary on your own is a beautiful experience.

But praying the Rosary in a group setting, gathered around a mother-to-be, knowing a new little life is growing inside her, is extraordinarily powerful.

If you ever decide you want to host your own prayer gathering, here are a few tips to keep in mind:

Make sure the invitation mentions that you will be praying.

I tried to make these as welcoming as possible and made sure they said that no Rosary experience was required. I would have been delighted to have someone participate who isn’t familiar at all with the Rosary, but I wouldn’t have wanted that to be a surprise when they arrived.

Have fun with the food.

I really enjoy making the food light and fun and offering enough that everyone will be able to find something. This time we had chicken salad and shrimp salad on rolls, a veggie tray, guacamole, cheese and crackers, some cut-up fruit, cocktail meatballs, cookies, chocolate-covered pretzels, and a sheet cake. To drink, we had lemonade, iced tea, and water to drink, and that seemed to work well for everyone.

I do love a blank sheet cake to decorate, and this time I decided to make a chocolate chip rosary on top. I used a Twix for the cross and Skittles for the Our Father/Hail Mary beads.

I tried to carve Our Lady of Guadalupe into the watermelon I used to serve the fruit, but I am not sure it was recognizable. As one of my teens said very kindly, “This might not be your best work.”

Plan for the prayers.

If you’re praying a Rosary, think in advance about who might be willing to lead a decade. It’s so beautiful to have family and friends from different areas of the mother’s life to lead the prayers. As we ate and drank and connected, I also tapped a few of the ladies to ask them to lead part of the Rosary. We used the meditations and intentions that Bobbi wrote on her blog, Revolution of Love.

I’ve hosted several of these events, but this was the first time I thought to create a print program to carry us through the Rosary. I wanted to make sure no one would be intimidated not knowing the prayers, but I also wanted to capture the meditations and intentions at the start of each decade. On the back cover I wrote a litany of the saints that mattered most to this little baby’s family.

I also created very simple holy cards with a piece of a prayer by Padre Pio that the mother had mentioned is one that she’s been praying through this pregnancy.

Consider having favors.

Not everyone likes a favor, but I love the idea of keeping the party going beyond the event. In the past, I’ve given candles and ice cream sundae dishes. This time, we knew the baby was a boy, so I ordered tiny blue rosaries in bottles. They were very sweet, but I didn’t realize the bottles were glass—even though that is clear in the description online. That didn’t matter until the cutest toddler at the party accidentally knocked them on the floor and a couple of them broke. His mother got cut—luckily not seriously.

Having a baby and a toddler in our group this time added so much to the celebration. And it was quite an eventful gathering. Is it really a party if you don’t need to reach for the band-aids and the Shop-vac halfway through the event?

Now, we can keep praying as we await this little one’s birth. God bless this baby boy!

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